A Scary Old Study of Airplane Cockpit Dynamics: The Dangers of Fearing Authority

I wrote a detailed postabout the possible role of group dynamics in the miracle on the Hudson. I have also blogged quite a bit about about how good bosses need to create psychological safety, especially to enable people to speak up when they have made errors -- including here and here. Well, with the terrible crash near Buffalo of flight 3407, I found myself going back and reading research on airplane cockpit dynamics, and came across a 1984 article in the American Psychologist called "Dyads and Triads at 35,000 Feet" by H. Clayton (Clay) Foushee (8:885-893).

A lot of research and work has been done since that time to improve the decision-making and team dynamics in the cockpit. Indeed, Captain Chesley Sullenberger consults on this topic, which they sometimes call "cockpit resource management." But I was still struck by how Clay's old article described a case study of 1979 crash of a commuter plane, which apparently happened partly because the second officer (still on probation) failed to take control when the captain (a vice-president known for his gruff style) became incapacitated. Then, he reported this study:

'Apparently this reluctance to question captains or assume control is not an isolated problem. In an investigation Harper, Kidera, and Cullen (1971) at a major carrier, captains feigned subtle incapacitation at predetermined point during final approach in simulator trials characterized by poor weather and visibility. In that study, approximately 25% of these simulated flights "hit the ground" because, for some reason, the first officers did no take control.' (page 888).

Pretty scary, huh? Next time you think your boss is screwing-up, and you are afraid to say something, you might think about this study. And if you are a boss, are your people so afraid of you, that they are afraid to speak-up? Unfortunately, it appears that fear of authority is one of many causes of knowing-doing gaps.

P.S. The Harper et al study was published in Aerospace Medicine, vol 42: 946-948.And if you want to see the NTSB report about the 1979 crash, go here.

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There is a raft of things I could say about this topic as a result of 20+ years consulting on fear in the workplace. Tom Roux's question is a very interesting one. My answer is that yes, some leaders can get it, but not simply because someone has stood up to them on an issue. They get it because they begin to experience a gap internally between who they want to be as a boss and who they are. What causes this? Well, sometimes a particularly clear dialogue with someone who they respect; sometimes evidence that their approach is costing them personally (such as a poor review or threatened dismissal); and sometimes life happens -- a divorce, the illness of a child, etc. -- that causes a person to reflect deeply on themselves.

What is also the case is that at least in traditional American business culture, there has been little real emphasis placed on the value of messengers. Instead, of course, they're "shot." When I am asked to do training to help open up cultures, it is most often a request to help messengers be "better" than a request to help receivers learn from issues where their own behavior is part of the problem. Instead, the messenger is blamed for failing to carry the message in a perfect way. This overemphasis on messenger skills rather than receiving skills is the number one reason in my book we have problems. It's a power issue and also a "sleep" issue. By putting all the emphasis on messengers and their skills the receivers are enabled to stay asleep to their own abrasive or ambiguous behavior -- the two primary causes of fear. As one of my first and best bosses said to me, "If you can't get feedback, you simply shouldn't be in the role of a leader." Seems simple enough until you actually try to drive out the fear.

Bob,
Interesting post.
Quick question: How often do you think it is the case that the fear-inducing boss who *is* told that s/he is screwing is still going to carry on in the same fashion anyway?
In my career, I've respectfully stood up to a couple of somewhat pretentious supervisors when I knew they were dead wrong on an issue. Even after the truth came out and my position was revealed to be the better one, all it got me was a reputation for being a difficult subordinate and a ride to the top of the candidate list when layoff time came around.
Thankfully, each time I've redeemed myself by moving on to bigger and better positions with the knowledge that some guys just don't want to hear that the plane is about to crash.

Gladwell does a nice job describing several things, including the role of cultural factors in how group decisions are made under stress. He describes Hofstede's cultural dimensions, especially Power/Distance. All of this is a part of a larger field known as Human Factors research that studies how our humanity affects how we react in various situations. Human Factors research is used by accident prevention organizations, fire departments and the military, among others

When lives are at stake and you only have seconds to act, things probably should seem black and white. But at least in the world I live in, high tech product development, things are not that simple.

Everything is a trade off, a compromise, and changes to improve one area frequently lead to emerging issues in another area. While I may disagree with a decision made by my boss (where "boss" can be a technical lead, a product manager, a CEO, etc.), my 30+ years of experience tell me that he might well be right, or at best it's a priority call, where none of us really have sufficient information to make the optimal decision that would require a crystal ball.

A lot of leadership is about making the right decision using very fuzzy logic. And as we're finding out in the current economic climate, a lot of decisions can appear good, or at least benign, when you're surfing the bow wave of a growing economy. (Cue Warren Buffet's quote about it only being when the tide goes out that you find out who is swimming naked: more broadly applicable I think then maybe he intended.)

It might seem like a non-sequitur, but for sure a lot of engineering is about about contingency plans in case things toes up in some critical area. But the constant pressure to reduce costs to be more competitive has reduced the ability to make and carry out such contingency plans. Less and less redundancy, less and less excess capacity needed to handle rapid changes in circumstances.

I'm talking about engineering. But replace "engineering" with "finance" and it starts sounding a lot like how we might have gotten into our current economic circumstances.

I sometimes wonder if our technological infrastructure is as much a house of cards as our financial infrastructure has turned out to be.

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers summarizes similar research quite nicely. The example of the dismal safety record of Korean Air improving after the cultural issues were identified is very interesting. Is there any research that suggests a direct co-relation between the Power Distance Index ( http://www.clearlycultural.com/geert-hofstede-cultural-dimensions/power-distance-index/ ) and quality of leaders / managers like it did in the case of air travel safety?